A Place of Hiding

“She might have been there at some other time,” St. James said.

“Might have been. True. I know the story. Brouard gave them the run of the place when he wasn’t running them round it himself. But what he didn’t do was catch her hair in the zip of the track suit jacket he had on when he died. And I wouldn’t put money on him having wiped his head on her wrap, either.”

“What sort of wrap?”

“Black blanket affair. One button at the neck, no sleeves.”

“A cloak?”

“And his hair was on it, just where you’d expect to find it if you had to lock your arm round him to hold him still. Silly cow hadn’t thought to use a clothes brush on it.”

St. James said, “The means of the killing...It’s a bi t unusual, wouldn’t you say? The stone? His choking? If he didn’t swallow it himself by accident—”

Le Gallez said, “Not bloody likely.”

“—then someone would have had to thrust it down his throat. But how? When? In the midst of a struggle? Were there signs of a struggle?

On the beach? On his body? On the River woman when you brought her in?”

He shook his head. “No struggle. But there wouldn’t be the need for one. That’s why we were looking for a woman from the first.” He went to one of the tables and fetched a plastic container whose contents he dumped into his palm. He fingered through them, said, “Ah. This’ll do,” and produced a half-open roll of Polos. He thumbed one out, held it up for St. James to see, and said, “Stone in question’s just a bit larger than this. Hole in the centre to go on a key ring. Some carving round the sides as well. Now watch.” He popped the Polo into his mouth, tongued it into his cheek, and said, “You c’n pass more than germs when you French it, mate.”

St. James understood but was nonetheless doubtful. There was vast improbability implied in the investigator’s theory as far as he was concerned. He said, “But she would have had to do more than just pass the stone into his mouth. Yes. I do see it’s possible she could have got it onto his tongue if she was kissing him, but surely not down his throat. How would she have managed that?”

“Surprise,” Le Gallez countered. “She catches him off guard when the stone goes into his mouth. One hand on the back of his neck while they’re lip-locked and he’s in the right position. The other on his cheek and in the moment he pulls away from her because she’s passed him the stone, she’s caught him in the crook of her arm, bent him back, and her hand’s down his throat. So’s the stone, for that matter. And he’s done for.”

“You don’t mind my saying, that’s a bit unlikely,” St. James said. “Your prosecutors can’t possibly hope to convince...D’you have juries here?”

“Doesn’t matter. The stone’s not intended to convince a soul,” Le Gallez said. “It’s just a theory. May not even come up in court.”

“Why not?”

Le Gallez smiled thinly. “Because we’ve got a witness, Mr. St. James,”

he said. “And a witness is worth a hundred experts and their thousand pretty theories, if you know what I mean.”

At the prison where China was being held on remand, Deborah and Cherokee learned that events had moved forward swiftly in the twenty four hours since he’d left the island to find help in London. China’s advocate had managed to get her released on bail and had set her up elsewhere. Prison administration knew where, naturally, but they weren’t forthcoming with the information. Deborah and Cherokee thus retraced their route from the States Prison towards St. Peter Port, and when they found a phone box where Vale Road opened into the wide vista of Belle Greve Bay, Cherokee leaped out of the car to ring the advocate. Deborah watched through the phone box glass and could see that China’s brother was understandably agitated, rapping his fist against the glass as he spoke. Not adept at lip reading, Deborah could still discern the “Hey, man, you listen,” when Cherokee said it. Their conversation lasted three or four minutes, not enough time to reassure Cherokee about anything but just enough to discover where his sister had been delivered.

“He’s got her in some apartment back in St. Peter Port,” Cherokee reported as he climbed back into the car and jerked it into gear. “One of those places people rent out in the summer. ‘Only too happy to have her there’ was how he put it. Whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

“A holiday flat,” Deborah said. “It would just stand empty till spring, probably.”